Cosmicomics is a multi-media collaboration between composer
Richard Carrick and video projection designer Peter Nigrini. It is
based on four magnificent fables from Italo Calvino’s novella
of the same name.

Calvino’s
main character exists throughout time and space, experiencing scientific
phenomena such as the universal singularity before the big bang, the
curvature of space caused by massive objects, and the threshold beyond
which light from the universe will never be able to reach earth. Quirky,
inspired, and endlessly inventive, Calvino’s stories humanize
these phenomena by spinning out absurd tales of frustration, love,
insecurity, and loneliness.

Carrick and Nigrini have scored these four stories as a 25-minute
work for narrator, chamber ensemble, multi-channel video and electronics.
As a multi-media concert piece where live performance is paramount,
the
video is interactive and controllable in real-time, allowing the performance
all the freedoms normally afforded in a traditional concert.

Cosmicomics is a collaboration of sound and image that equally
blend all aspects of music and the moving image. It does away with
the hierarchy of one media leading the other, creating a meta-work
consisting of light, timbre, color, harmony, image and gesture. The
world premiere is presented by the “perfect ensemble”
for theatrical music (Time Out New York) the Sequitur Ensemble of
New York City at Merkin Concert Hall (129 West 67th Street) on Wednesday,
January 12, 2005 at 8pm. Tickets $15

Well,
not news of the polite variety in this case . . .

If
on a winter's night two lovers ... John
Hooper in The Guardian. Aug. 18, 2004. "The sex life of Italy's
most respected 20th-century novelist was heading for the courts
yesterday after his widow instructed lawyers in Rome to seek an
injunction banning the publication of further extracts from his
passionate correspondence with a married lover."

Today's
news is not the end of the affairPeter Preston in The Observer, Aug. 22, 2004.
"Italo wrote Elsa some 300 steamy letters of the 'I'll rip
your clothes off' variety - and the Corriere is printing them. Calvino's
widow, meanwhile, is trying to stop them. Will she succeed? Perhaps,
on copyright grounds." Preston moves on to David Blunket very
quickly.

Italian
novelist's love letters turn politicalElisabetta
Povoledo in the International Herald Tribune, Aug. 20, 2004. "It
started out as a soft summer feature, one of a series of light pieces
about famous couples crafted to hook the reader's interest while
filling newspaper space during a traditionally slow season. But
the publication this month of nearly 50-year-old letters by the
novelist Italo Calvino to his former lover, the actress Elsa de'
Giorgi, has sparked an acrimonious cultural debate with a deeply
rooted political subtext."

Old
News The Hermit in Paris--a selection of Calvino's
autobiographical writings--was published in early 2003 in hardcover.
A paperback edition will be made available in January of 2004. Read
reviews at the The
Observer, theWashington
Times, and the LA
Times. Read an excerpt at the Paris
Review.

Two
other books are now listed on Amazon.co.uk: Calvino's Letters
(0099332213) and Classics (0099332116) are (supposedly) to
be published in 2004. That is the extent of my information on these
two items (thanks to Phil for pointing me in this direction).